


I'm not saying you'll sleep well afterwards, but maybe it'll help to know

by WhoopsIWroteKylo (A_Pilgrim_In_Zion)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Could have been more graphic than it is tho, Discussion of murder using the force, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mutilation, Not Beta Read, Permanent Injury, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Trying to balance lack of spoilers with this is dark as fucking fuck, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:30:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6094594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Pilgrim_In_Zion/pseuds/WhoopsIWroteKylo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On blue squadron’s last supply run, Jess had somehow come up with another stormtrooper defector, and if this one had made it a bit further on her own than Finn had, well, she also had a more direct desire to join the resistance than Finn had possessed before Rey got involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm not saying you'll sleep well afterwards, but maybe it'll help to know

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, please be careful, this is full of a lot of stuff that isn't going to go over well for people who are affected by almost any problematic content.

“Poe” General Organa called out “could you come here for a minute please?”  In the first second he turned he was... curious. He didn’t know of anything new that had happened, but the tone... the second second he turned, he saw her eyes, and his heart & stomach turned to stone and threatened to escape through the floor.

Once inside her office, she gestured curtly for him to sit, and sat down herself, perhaps a little too heavily, perhaps a little too full of grief even after everything. She handed him a data pad and made a faint noise in her throat, but it failed to become words. Poe looked from the data pad to Leia’s face, concerned, and on the second try she managed, faintly, “Apparently there are more female stormtroopers than we thought.”

It didn’t make good reading.   On blue squadron’s last supply run, Jess had somehow come up with another stormtrooper defector, and if this one had made it a bit further on her own than Finn had, well, she also had a more direct desire to join the resistance than Finn had possessed before Rey got involved. TS-7917, now called Tess, estimated age 16. Confident and firey despite everything, Tess was even more of an intel find than Finn, being a tie gunner. And, from what she’d said, her absence ought to help a few more resistance pilots come home alive as well.

The part where it got worse (at least some of the first order’s stuff, well, they’d been through it with Finn already and it was a familiar bad), the part where it got worse was on physical examination. Poe read the summary findings only, which gave him the impression in their very clinical detachment that he wasn’t even close to understanding what had happened.

“Extensive internal scarring as consistent with repeated injury via mechanical means, not consistent with edged weaponry, although individual injuries may be from blades or other clean edges. Patient unable to reproduce.  Minor and a few major external labial scars, consistent with internal injuries and likely caused by the same means and at the same time.”

Poe looked up, shaking. “You need to look at the pictures” Leia said in perhaps the deadest monotone he’d ever heard from her.

“Why?!” Poe nearly cried.   “The medbots aren’t able to ask about what happened, she doesn’t really respond to them. And she’d been refusing to speak to women - to Dr Kalonia, to Jess, she started to talk to Dr Kalonia I guess and said it was hurting her too much.” Leia hung her head. “She’s been told she’s force sensitive, its not enough for me to pick up, but it might be enough for her to sense others feelings.”

Poe shivered a little, and stared at her, still not quite sure where he fit into things.

“Basically, she wants to talk to a man because she thinks they’ll react less, they won’t imagine it the same way. She has a point,” Leia quipped with the briefest of smiles “You don’t exactly have the ability to imagine specifically what it feels like. And, well, Poe, besides being one of the ranking human males here on base, the fact you tend to like guys a bit more - I hope it will cause you less distress than some. I know its not going to be none - I know its going to haunt you - but if it has to haunt someone, well, I’d like to do the least additional damage possible.”

Poe looked her in the eyes, and nodded. Acknowledged. And then started crying. He cried for nearly five minutes, shaking, in the chair before he was finally able to accept a tissue and look at what he didn’t want to see. As his mind tried to process, he wound up thinking one thing Leia hadn’t considered - he’d been Kylo’s guest, and, if as he feared Kylo was somehow responsible for this... well, its true, he wasn’t female. But he could imagine horrors enough. At the same time, he wondered if he thought this was better or worse than what had happened... he didn’t even know if Kylo had been inside this girl’s mind. Tess. Her name is Tess. And with that he shook himself, decided to stop imagining, and start figuring out what had actually happened.

*

About twenty minutes later, he rapped lightly on the door of Tess’s private room, and she answered... almost before he finished knocking? Stars, force sensitives were hard to get used to! As he walked in he just caught an expression change on Tess’s face, from business, almost eager to please, to worry, and then what - what he probably wouldn’t have recognised as sympathy except for spending so much time with Finn, and knowing what the emotion they’d worked so hard not to show in the first order looked like newly on someone’s face.

“He was inside you too.”  Poe’s heart sank, literally, just fell through the floor like a lead weight, could he even do this? He staggered slightly against the wall, suddenly dizzy.

“Sit” Tess gestured, and suddenly he felt supported slightly... but he couldn’t feel her, couldn’t feel any touch on his mind, and although he wanted to be scared, it wasn’t really as bad as he’d feared. He collapsed weak-kneed into the chair, and Tess took his hand about as greedily as Finn ever had. Apparently it wasn’t just escaping in a Tie fighter together than caused that reaction! Admittedly, Poe mused, Finn had been just as handsy with Rey from before they’d wound up running away in ships together, so maybe if he’d just thought about it... he dragged his thoughts back to the present with some difficulty.

“I don’t know if this is good or bad for you” Tess mulled. “Better than the women - they couldn’t separate what they’d feel. But because he hurt you too, even if differently... it could help, it could heal, it could make it worse. And I’m sorry I don’t know which.” 

Tess’s admission, Poe thought, would normally have been accompanied by tears or a break in voice - by emotion that he took for granted, that she, having only just escaped the crazy situation she’d grown up in, probably couldn’t admit or maybe even feel. But it was easier that way, for the moment... he didn’t have to worry about hurting her, and for that moment it felt easier to focus on himself. And he found that even though he didn’t know, he was happy to try.

“I want to take the risk.” Poe was surprised even to himself when the next line tumbled out “And its not just to help you, or help the base. I... I want to... I want to see if it will help me. To adjust.” He trembled on the last words, but looked up as proudly as he could, and Tess’s eyes were so supportive.

“Well, they told you I’m force sensitive, slightly, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the first order is trying to breed their own Jedi. They don’t have so many options these days, so its pretty much Kylo Ren and any women that test as even fractionally force sensitive. And because of having Kylo kill everyone off first, other than a couple girls that got away somewhere... we’re all still pretty young. I’m with the oldest year.”

Poe shook a little, thinking about how they thought she was only 16, and finally asked the question Tess must have known she was suggesting “How young do they start?”

“Twelve.”

Poe doubled over with nausea, almost vomiting but just managing to swallow it back. Not having eaten in awhile helped.

“I know everyone here keeps having that reaction, but by twelve everyone has started menstruating, and they think everyone with even light force sensitivity should be testable.”

“Its not... just about menstruation.” Poe managed to choke out. “Even if its purely physical considerations, your body will still change, will be more able to go through childbirth successfully as you get a bit older...” he trailed off, fighting down the urge to retch.

“Well, of course,” Tess replied, which made Poe blink just a fraction. “I’m not saying they’ve made the absolute best choice, but Ren goes out to fight, and I think they’re wanting to get as many offspring as they can, as fast as they can, rather than worrying about long term quality. I know they’ve frozen some sperm from him, but... any child they get now still has to grow up. I understand, even if I don’t agree with their viewpoint.”

Poe’s head spun a little, but he kept his focus on Tess and on the very solid and not at all moving wall behind her head. It didn’t make zero sense, but she shouldn’t be so kriffing calm about it!

“There were only three of us in my year,” Tess continued. “I met the other two, but they said we couldn’t trade designations. The one girl was pretty much in love with him, absolutely on about how exciting it would be to have his children. It made me feel kinda sick.”

That, Poe thought, is not an overwhelming surprise.

“The other girl said she didn’t want to have children, certainly not yet, and not his, and was quite scared. I didn’t want it either - but none of us could see what else we might do, short of kill each other, and we were well restrained and guarded. I know we were all meant to be force sensitives, but none of us had enough power to murder with it, I think.”

Poe felt he was getting past the point of feeling nauseous, but the dizziness did seem to get worse with some considerations. He sipped briefly at his water, swallowed hard, and went back to staring at a nice straight line on the wall behind Tess’s head. Tess favoured him with a brief look of sympathy, but then pressed on.  
“I was the last to go in. It was scary, the room, it wasn’t the one you were kept in but it wasn’t much better. We were made to strip, propped up on a table with our feet in stirrups and spread. It was embarrassing, a little, but mostly I just felt the fear for what I imagined to come next.” Tess swallowed a little, the first sign she’d shown of her own discomfort in telling the story. “Ren came in, and, he wasn’t in a temper like usual, he was... he was human. You could believe he came from the light, first. He asked me if I wanted to have his children. I said no very violently! I said I’d rather die, could he kill me, with his lightsaber, instead?”

Despite his best efforts, Poe started to cry quietly, but he squeezed Tess’s hand, and she continued with just the faintest touch of shakiness.

“He said no. He said I needn’t die, it would be a waste. He said I could live, and if I wanted, I could live without having to be his broodmare. I don’t think I can ever convey the awful hope I felt in that moment. I’m... I’m this much force sensitive, that I feel emotions, he wasn’t lying to me!” Tess quivered fractionally, dipped her head, sipped at her own water. “He said... he said that in order to do it, I would have to be injured, though. That I wouldn‘t be able to breed later with anyone else. That he couldn’t offer any help with the injuries - they’d be horrific - he had to make it look like it was a fit of temper, so I would have to go through it on my own and be patched up afterwards. He said he would show me, if I wanted, he could reach into my head and show me what it looked like.”

Poe’s eyes, at this point, had pretty much become saucers. Ren had... what? Ren offered what? Was he trying to be kind, was he trying to be... what was this, even? Tess had settled again a little, the admission of hope had been the hardest part of the story for her. The rest was surprisingly clinical, something she didn’t seem to know enough to be bothered by.

“He did warn me, that the previous girl hadn’t wanted his children, but when he’d shown her the alternative, she had begged instead to be bred by him. Despite the pain of the intercourse itself, never mind the childbirth, she hadn’t been able to face it I guess...” Tess trailed off with some confusion. “I can’t say I understand. He showed me, Kylo showed me what it would look like, a touch of what it would feel like, and even though I knew it would be horrible, I agreed wholeheartedly. He said another reason for showing me was to judge what I really wanted. Because he was inside my mind, albeit lightly, when he did it, he could feel how strongly I would rather the injuries and mutilation than to become his broodmare for the next thirty years. The previous girl had wavered quickly, had been begging in her mind for the so called safety of rape and pregnancy and childbirth before she’d been remotely able to vocalise to him, but he confirmed he never felt me waver. And he let me feel, later, just a little of his own emotion - and I could tell he wanted not to be breeding dark side force babies, or not like that. That he was literally doing whatever he could think of to lessen it happening, without getting censured for killing them in rages, and without winding up with them being quietly bred behind his back with the frozen stuff. He’s... he’s not stupid,” Tess concluded, and there was a touch of what read to Poe as love and concern in her voice.  He felt a little dizzy, a little worried at that, but he waved her on, sensing interruptions at this point would be one of his worst ideas.

“Anyway” Tess shook her head a little, “Those injuries and scars are all from his lightsaber, not turned on obviously! Its got enough protrusions, sharp edges, especially handled roughly. He didn’t try to cause me any particular pain, but he did try to be thorough about tearing up all of the surface area inside of me equally. He...” Tess hesitated a little. “He stayed linked to me while he did it, so he felt all of the pain as well.”

Poe’s jaw dropped, and he just stared. And after staring, for a minute, started to speak, croakily... 

Tess might be a bit more force sensitive than she let on. “He wasn’t getting off on it, it was enough of a two way channel that I could tell, so he could monitor better I guess. I almost think he was punishing himself. But he was doing the best thing he could think of for me, so I could still have a life. And... and the pain was horrible, and it does get to the point where you start to think about death, and could he just flick the switch and could this all be over. Its not something you can avoid. But when he was done, when he was sure, he placed a call to medical acting all worried and contrite over what he’d done, supposedly in his temper, and they rushed to get me and they put me under for awhile. It was enough... they couldn’t breed me. But I was back on my feet with the unit within just a few days, definitely not worth wasting me or my training. I think its not going to be the easiest thing for most people here to understand, but I’m insanely grateful, both for what he did and how he did it.”

Poe couldn’t help crying again, squeezing Tess’s hand now for his own sake. It was a lot to deal with... and how would Leia feel, knowing what her son did? Yet equally, it showed, maybe, that he wasn’t as lost to the darkside as everyone feared... Poe relaxed into the tears, into the privacy of being with someone who wasn’t judging him, and felt the tiniest bit of hope in himself. What Ren had done had been very hard to deal with, was still very hard to deal with... but there was the hope that he’d been treated more humanly than he might have been, that maybe it hadn’t all been as bad as what it seemed. And even if that didn’t change a single action or emotion experienced so far, it gave him a light to dealing with it which didn’t feel quite as overwhelming. Tess seemed to understand his emotional shift without words, and reached across with her other hand to stroke his gently, smiling at him briefly. Poe scrubbed the tears from his face roughly with his free hand, but even that action, it didn’t feel as weighted as so many before. 

“I think you’re right, Tess,” Poe said “Its going to be hard for a lot of people here to understand, but, they don’t all have to. I’m not even sure I understand... but I’m certainly not judging you for it. And the information, is,” Poe swallowed briefly to keep his voice clear “incredibly helpful!”

Tess leaned back a bit, relaxing, a smile ghosting across her young features. “I’m hoping you lot will let me become helpful for more than just my information, eventually.”

“Count on it, Tess. Absolutely count on it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from. Its not my normal. But it really wanted to be written, so... yeah. I tried to draw down the graphicness as much as possible without losing the thread completely. Concrits welcome, I kinda didn't want to torture betas with this stuff!


End file.
